With Antisemitism Spiking, UK Jews Ask if They Have a Future in Britain
In Britain we have the worst of all worlds: Islamic extremist antisemitism merging with simplistic interpretations of U.S. critical race theory and post-colonial guilt. Since the Hamas assault there's been an eruption of Jew-hatred – and a dearth of allies
It was, finally, the antisemitic pizza which made me hysterical in almost every sense of the word. Ecco Pizzeria in the city of Leeds in northern England, where I spend several happy years as a student, announced on its Instagram page that Zionists were not welcome and our government was "perfectly possessed by Satan" for supporting Israel.
Then it asked for recommendations for the toppings for an upcoming offering: "anti-Zionist pizza".
I laughed because it was just so ridiculous; mozzarella and basil with a hint of Zionist blood? I cried too, when I remembered the scared student who had showed me the posts. Universities are the frontline of the war against antisemitism in the West and she couldn’t even get a pizza without having hatred dished out on a plate.
And I felt like punching something. Hard. The anger and frustration, fear and stress are constantly bubbling within.
We British Jews are not fighting a war as our family and friends in Israel are. We are not facing daily rocket barrages like those in Israel or bombings like those in Gaza. We are not rushing into bomb shelters or experiencing the fear of knowing our sons, daughters or partners could be killed in action. We feel each of those things keenly too. But we have a very different battle on our hands. It is one that has been brewing for some time. And we truly don’t know the outcome. The question many are asking is, ‘Do we have a future in Britain?’
Earlier this week, Tracy Ann Oberman, a friend and well-known actress who once starred in our most popular soap opera, EastEnders, and is currently touring the nation in a reclaimed version of Shakespeare’s antisemitic play, The Merchant of Venice, was the most depressed and defeated I’ve ever seen.
She'd spent years deflecting hatred as a key activist in the fight against Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labor party, who famously called Hamas "friends" (and who still refuses to call them a terror group). She wrote on her social media channels Monday night: ‘Don’t worry UK – keep going like you’re going; you won’t have many Jewish people living here in a few years. The rise in anti-Jewish hate crimes soaring daily. The acceptable vernacular. So many conversations with friends talking exit strategies. You’ll miss us, I think.’
British Jews once knew we were the luckiest community in Europe. Britain fought Hitler back and so we never had to see whether our countrymen would turn on us as they did everywhere else on the continent.
But we’ve also always known that we have not always been loved. The Blood Libel originated here in 1144 when a 12-year-old boy was found murdered in Norwich. Local Jews were killed and accusations of ritual murder spread throughout the land – and expelled entirely in 1290. It was 400 years until we were allowed back.
When we returned to escape the pogroms 150 years ago, Britain enacted its first ever anti-immigration law to limit our numbers.
Outside every one of our schools and synagogues are security gates and security guards, because there has never been a time when we have not been under threat. We can’t even release details of where our vigils for the kidnapped Israelis will be until a few hours before they start, because of security fears.
We always knew there was an undercurrent of antisemitism boiling under a thin crust of British civility. But since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 there has been an eruption of Jew hatred which has taken us – even those well-versed in antisemitism – by surprise.
We see the signs everywhere – from hospital doctors who write, "The Jews are our misfortune’" to comments by a prominent talent agent to a Scotland Yard employee.
'It feels like somehow the word settler has lost its meaning if it can be understood as "civilian", said a tweet reposted by the talent agent, Kitty Laing.
Facebook poetry groups are churning out gems like this haiku: ‘Marching in protest/ Is it anti-Semitic/ Or antiseptic’, while there are memes about the best ovens to burn babies in. There is a molten flood of online hatred.
And there are seemingly thousands – even people I know - who don’t believe that October 7 happened. They are pulling down kidnapped posters of abducted children because they see it is as "propaganda". Or they think it happened but that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it to. Some mutter darkly about oil. The only outsiders who see this as part of a wider conflict are the scores of Iranians in London who, in a surprising and wonderful show of solidarity, are at almost every pro-Israel rally.
The hatred has impacted on real life with record numbers of antisemitic incidents; Jews are threats in the street, at schools, outside synagogues. Some are taking down their mezuzahs while others are donning kippahs and Magen Davids for the first time outside of synagogue to put a brave front on the hatred.
Every week, in most cities there are pro-Palestine marches brimming with antisemitic images and people who often don’t know which "river" or which "sea" merrily chanting, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free."
They may be well-meaning; but none are marching for peace – only a ceasefire with no conditions – no demands for a hostage release - which means Israel would be left vulnerable to future attacks. Others are singing "Jihad" or revelling in songs about a previous massacre of Jews. It feels like Antisemitism dressed as anti-Zionism, fashionable among the young, most of whom are not versed with the complexities of the region.
Possibly the worst thing is the people who do recognize this hatred for what it is but say nothing; the anti-racism charities who back the marchers. The feminist charities – all of them – who don’t mention the rape of Israeli women that took place October 7 or speak out against the special vulnerability of women hostages.
In Britain we have the worst of all worlds: Islamic extremist antisemitism merging with simplistic interpretations of American critical race theories about white and brown people.
And then there is what we recognize as classic Foreign Office Arabist bias. It is epitomised both by the row with the BBC over whether to call Hamas terrorists and by the historian William Dalrymple, who has a Bafta and nearly 1 million more X followers than there are Jews in the UK, and whose tweets constantly whip up malign suspicion that Israel wants ‘a new Nakba’.
Added into the mix of different forms of hatreds is a looming post-colonial guilt in which the problem of Palestine is not the fault of the British who left the land so deeply divided but - of course – the Jews for needing the refuge of a homeland.
Almost every Jewish person I know is in multiple WhatsApp groups with fellow British Jews – work ones, school ones, friend ones – because no one else seems to understand either our continuing grief about October 7, our connection to the hostages, or our distress at the horrendous antisemitism that came in its wake.
We exchange stories of hatred we’ve witnessed, we write letters that never get satisfactory answers, we comfort one another too. And we self soothe by talking about food even if pizza off the menu. There are age-old debates over how to pronounce bagel (bay-gel – like the Americans or bi-gel like our Ashkenazi ancestors) where to get the best challah and which Israeli restaurants to support because suddenly they are empty; a metaphor for how friendless we feel.